


Reunions

by aviciousunicycle



Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Depression, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Parent(s), Mental Health Issues, Minor Character Death, One Shot Collection, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Romance, Songfic, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:34:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24933808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aviciousunicycle/pseuds/aviciousunicycle
Summary: Two hurt people find ways to come together and make their own happy ending. Stories from the lives of Tony and Ziva told through a series of one-shot songfics inspired by the album "Reunions" by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit.
Relationships: Ziva David/Anthony DiNozzo
Comments: 21
Kudos: 46





	1. Overseas

**Author's Note:**

> The song "Overseas," used in the first chapter, actually inspired this entire fic. Every time I hear this song, I think of Tony and Ziva's story, so I started looking at more of the songs on this album and seeing if I could find ways to weave those into the lives of Tony, Ziva, Tali, and the other members of their family.

Their relationship had been through some absolute lows.  
Lows that would have destroyed anyone else.   
Sane people wouldn’t have weathered a single one of them and came out this dependent on one another, let alone go through the endless chain that they had gone through since they met.

 _This used to be a ghost town  
_ _But even the ghosts got out  
_ _And the sound of the highway died  
_ _There’s ashes in the swimming pool_

Right now for some godforsaken reason, all Tony could think about was this one night years ago.   
Ziva had shown up in his doorway and he could clearly see that she was a total wreck. To an outsider, she could probably have passed for being composed, but she could never fool him.  
He didn’t ask any questions-- he knew better than to do that. Instead, he just offered her a beer, some pizza, a classic film, and a spot next to him on the couch.   
They made it through _Chinatown_ , _On the Waterfront_ , and half of _The African Queen_ before either of them spoke. To Tony’s great surprise, it was Ziva who spoke first.  
“Today was supposed to be our-- Ray and-- my… wedding,” she said, looking blankly in the direction of the television.   
“Hm,” Tony nodded, not sure what to say.   
She sighed deeply, “I guess that I should not be surprised that it ended this way.”  
He glanced over at her and saw tears glistening in her eyes, threatening to spill down her cheek.  
“Everything I touch… falls apart,” she continued.  
He shook his head, reaching over to wrap an arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side, “Don’t say that.”  
“Why not?” she said, struggling weakly against him.  
“Because it’s not true and you know it,” he responded.  
She pushed off of him and stared at him, floundering for a response.  
He looked her in the eyes, even darker in the dim light of the apartment, and shook his head.  
Even as she struggled for an answer, he refused to break eye contact, “One day, you’ll get your happy ending, Ziva. I promise.”  
She sighed deeply and collapsed against his side, resting her head on his shoulder.   
By the time the movie ended, she had sank down into her seat and fallen asleep with her head in his lap.  
He carded his fingers through her hair and sighed.

 _But I saw you on your wedding night  
_ _And I watched you sleeping in my arms  
_ _You didn’t wash your make-up off  
_ _And you woke up looking scared as hell_

Tali rolling over fitfully in her sleep stirred him from his thoughts and he turned to watch the little girl for a moment.  
Her small balled fist was pressed against her half-open mouth while her other arm clung loosely to her favorite stuffed toy.   
He leaned over to pull the blanket back up where she had kicked it halfway off of her body.   
She slept just as restlessly as her mother.

 _My love won’t change  
_ _My love won’t change  
_ _My love won’t change a thing  
_ _You’re never coming back to me  
_ _You’re never coming back at all_

Was he raising her right by Ziva? What if he had already fucked this up? Would she grow up to be well-adjusted?   
For the past year, he had been the one making all the decisions in Tali’s life. What if they were the wrong ones?   
Every day there was something new. Would Ziva approve of Tali’s breakfast cereal? Probably not; she would probably tell him that she shouldn’t be eating something so sugary first thing in the morning. What about her clothes? Her preschool? The lunch he packed for her? The dinners he served? How infrequently he cooked? What would she think of her room?   
If she was here, she would do it so differently, he knew it.  
She would do it better; he knew that she would do it all so much better.

 _And the waiter made a young girl cry  
_ _At the table next to mine tonight  
_ _And I know you would have brought him to his knees  
_ _But you’re overseas_

Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair, leaving it looking even more disheveled than it had been before.   
How did this even happen? How could they have let this happen? How could it have fallen apart so quickly.   
Hardly a week passed without him remembering their last days together. The flirty texts. The heated glances. The intense conversation. The days spent learning more about her and the place that was so connected to her. The nights spent with limbs tangled together. Fingers digging into bare flesh. Sweat glistening in the moonlight. Gasps and cries filling the night air. Confessions whispered into hair.   
In spite of the sword of Damocles hanging over their relationship, they felt like this moment would never end. 

_Doesn’t seem so long ago  
_ _We thought that we could change their minds  
_ _We’d stay here and fight it out  
_ _With a love that we could weaponize_

What a massive change the last day brought. The resignation that it was, in fact, over changed everything.  
They didn’t talk about it all day-- maybe hoping that, if they didn’t mention it, it would go away.   
“You know I could stay,” he offered, trying to look like he was joking.  
“ _Tony_ ,” she said, shaking her head.  
“I mean it,” he said with a grin, “I could get a job slinging shawarma in some shady shop in town.”  
She smirked, “I would think that you may need to know Hebrew for that.”  
He smirked back at her, “Oh, well, in that case, I wonder if there’s a good tutor around here?”  
“Hm,” she tutted, “Oh yes, a very good one, but she doesn’t work cheap.”  
“I think I have plenty of payment for her,” he said, leaning over to press a kiss to her lips.  
She chuckled and pushed him away, “You can’t stay, Tony.”  
“Yes, I can.”  
“No,” she said, more firmly, “you cannot.”  
His face fell when he took in her serious expression and tone, “I…”

 _But I saw you losing faith  
_ _And I was watching when the lights went out  
_ _You know what revolution means  
_ _And you know it’s not an option now_

“They need you, Tony,” she responded.  
“They can make do without me,” he said.  
She shook her head, “They shouldn’t have to.”  
“But you need me, Ziva.”  
She smiled sadly and ran a hand down his chest. He didn’t miss her slight nod and the tears building in her eyes, “I will survive.”  
“Maybe I won’t,” he said, voice cracking.  
Ziva shook her head, “What about your father?”  
“He’s gotten on fine so far, hasn’t he?”  
“He’s only getting older, Tony.”  
“Doesn’t seem to be slowing him down.”  
She sighed, “You need to… cherish the time you have with him.”  
The words she left unspoken weighed heavily in the room.

 _And our love won’t change  
_ _Our love won’t change  
_ _Our love won’t change a thing  
_ _I couldn’t leave my father here  
_ _To finish up his life alone_

Earlier that evening, he had sat with his daughter. He was looking through the newspaper while she colored in her favorite coloring book.  
She looked up at him with a face that so clearly mirrored her mother’s and his heart skipped a beat. He almost missed her question.  
“When’s Ima coming home?” she asked.  
He sighed and wracked his brain for an answer that wasn’t too much of a lie, “Really soon, kiddo.”  
“Promise?”  
“I promise,” it broke his heart to lie to her, but he didn’t know what else to say.   
“How do you know?”  
He realized that a little lie wasn’t going to get him out of this situation now, but what could he say? He couldn’t tell this innocent little girl the truth of the situation. He couldn’t tell her that her mother might never come home. He couldn’t tell her that her mother might be dead right now.  
“I…” he fumbled for words, “She… she told me.”  
“When?” Tali asked, tilting her head.   
He couldn’t keep it up. He couldn’t just pile lie on top of lie. He couldn’t raise her in a web of falsehoods.  
Tony knelt down at Tali’s level and looked her in the eyes, “Kiddo, you’ve… you’ve just gotta believe that she’ll be home. That’s all we can do right now, okay? We’ve just gotta believe.”

 _And I saw you in our daughter’s eyes last night  
_ _When she caught me in a lie  
_ _And I need you here to make both of us believe  
_ _But you’re overseas_

He didn’t even know if he believed it anymore.   
She could be gone and he would never know.   
Tony walked to the window and looked out at the night sky. A few bright stars managed to shine through the light pollution of the city and he wondered if Ziva could see those stars wherever she was. 

_Does your heart rest easy where you are?  
_ _And do they treat you like a star?_  
_Or do they call you refugee_  
_From overseas?_


	2. Dreamsicle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Ziva had shitty childhoods. There were times that their parents tried their best. There were times that their parents totally fucked it up.

Long Island, 1984 

“All packed up, Champ?” his dad called into his room.  
Tony slammed his trunk lid shut and called back in the affirmative.   
Senior appeared in the doorway, “Our train leaves in a couple of hours. I’m going to go ahead and take this out to the car. Make sure you have everything you need.”  
Tony nodded as his father took the trunk and left the room.  
He looked around at the space. Blue walls covered in posters-- the faces of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Luke Skywalker, and Indiana Jones looked back at him.   
His baseball mitt sat on the table by his bed. He picked it up and sat on the edge of his bed. His fingers ran over the soft leather and the taut stitching. His mind wandered to Little League this past summer. Would that be his last time playing baseball with his team?   
He wasn’t particularly good at baseball, so he doubted that the team would miss him on the field, but would they even think about him being gone? Would his friends at school wonder about him? When they called roll on the first day of class, would anyone even notice the absence of a name between Dixon, Cynthia and DiStefano, Ronald? 

_I guess we’re leaving town again  
_ _We’re moving out and moving in  
_ _Gotta break the news to all my friends  
_ _But they won’t care  
_ _They’ll just find another face  
_ _To fall behind, to take my place  
_ _To run way out past second base  
_ _And just stand there_

At least he knew that the kids in his neighborhood would realize he was gone.   
Last night, he chased down the ice cream truck with Jason, Joey, and Kev.   
“You really gotta go?” Jason asked, pulling the lid off of his Screwball snow cone.   
Tony grimaced and pretended that the wrapper of his Dreamsicle was being difficult to open so that he didn’t have to look at his friend when he answered, “Yeah.”  
Kev’s ice cream sandwich had already gotten squishy in the evening heat of Long Island in late summer, “Where’re you going?”  
“Some fancy boarding school in Connecticut,” Tony responded, crumpling the wrapper of his ice cream bar in his hand.  
“Why do you have to go?” Joey asked, pulling the unbroken cherry twin pop out of his mouth with a hand on each stick.   
Tony shrugged, “My dad said I have to.”  
“You’re gonna miss the seventh grade dance,” Kev said, vanilla ice cream dripping onto the pavement.  
Tony sighed, but didn’t answer.  
“Are there even any girls at the school you’re going to?” Joey asked with red-stained lips.  
Tony shook his head, “It’s an all-boys school.”  
The other boys groaned.   
“That sucks, man,” Jason said.  
“I know,” Tony said, watching the orange sherbet melting onto his hand, “I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

 _A dreamsicle on a summer night  
_ _In a folding lawn chair  
_ _Witch’s ring around the moon  
_ _Better get home soon_

* * *

Tel Aviv, 1991 

Her father hadn’t been home for dinner, but that wasn’t much of a surprise. It seemed that he rarely was these days.   
Actually, it wasn’t uncommon for her father to still be absent by the time she reluctantly went to bed, so she didn’t know why tonight felt so different.   
It shouldn’t be something to worry her. At least if her father wasn’t home, there was some silence-- something other than the shouting that seemed to erupt from her parents every conversation these days.   
She didn’t know why they were so angry with one another. Usually when the yelling started, she would take Tali and go to her room. They would play together and pretend that the door insulated them from the terrible words their father shouted. 

Maybe tonight was different because Ima seemed different. Usually when her father didn’t come home when they thought he would, her mother would become tense. Ziva could see it in the taut line of her mother’s mouth. She could see the anger that her mother was holding inside, but didn’t want her daughters to know about.  
No, she wasn’t like that tonight.  
Tonight, her mother had almost cried when helping them fix their plates at dinner.   
Tonight, Ziva had caught a tear sliding down her cheek when she thought that the girls weren’t looking. 

The door to Ziva’s room cracked open and she had expected to see Tali silhouetted against the light of the hallway, but it was her mother.   
Rivka walked quietly into her eldest’s room and climbed into her bed.   
“Ima?” Ziva questioned in a soft voice.  
“Shh, shh, neshama shelli,” her mother soothed.  
“Is Abba coming home tonight?”  
She could hear her mother choke back a sob, “No, Zivaleh, he is not.”  
“Is he at work again?”  
Rivka ran a hand over her daughter’s curls, “No, ahuva, he is not at work.”  
Ziva turned to face her mother, “Then why isn’t he here.”  
Tears shone in her mother’s eyes in the dim light, “One day you will understand.”

 _Poison oak to poison ivy  
_ _Dirty jokes that blew right by me  
_ _Mama curling up beside me  
_ _Crying to herself  
_ _Why can’t Daddy just come home?  
_ _Forget whatever he did wrong  
_ _He’s in a hotel all alone  
_ _And we need help_

* * *

Massachusetts, 1987 

Tony stared into the crowd, eyes darting around nervously, searching the faces in the audience. “DiNozzo!” someone called and his head snapped around to see his coach looking at him, “Pay attention.”  
Tony gave his head a little shake to refocus on the play his coach was drawing out. Marshhaven was up six on them, but they still had plenty of time to change the outcome of the game. 

The huddle broke and the referee’s whistle signaled a return to play.   
Robinson inbounded it to Harris who started it up the court. Just across the halfcourt line, a Marshhaven player approached him. He passed the ball to Figueroa, who worked it to the free throw line. Figueroa passed the ball to Tony who sized up the shot, but realized that he didn’t have it. The Marshhaven player on him was too tall for him to make the shot. He saw Rose open and sent a bounce pass his way. With a swoosh and a cheer, Rose made the shot. Now they were only down four.   
Tony jogged upcourt as Marshhaven began advancing the ball. Their player had a great angle for a shot, but luckily Harris got there just in time to slap the shot down where it bounced to Rose who sprinted back toward the goal. Rose passed to Robinson just behind him who put the ball in for an easy layup and they were only down two.   
The Marshhaven players were nervous. They made a sloppy pass that Figueroa intercepted and their team started back down the court. Tony was wide open and had the shot, he called for the pass and Figueroa sent the ball to him as the game ticked down to its final seconds. Putting the pressure out of his mind, Tony squared up his shot and, as he sent the ball arcing toward the goal, the hand of the too-tall Marshhaven player made contact with his arm.   
Three things happened all at the same time-- the horn sounded the end of the game, the referee whistled to signal a foul, and Tony’s shot swished through the net.   
The score was tied and the game would be decided by free throws. Tony’s free throws.   
“You only have to make one,” Harris said, clapping his teammate on the back.   
Tony gulped and nodded, taking his place at the free throw line.   
“Two shots!” called the ref, bouncing the ball to Tony. Suddenly the net looked a thousand miles away. The sounds of the stands full of people flooded his ears and all he could hear was a cacophony of cheers and jeers. Every eye in the building was on him. His palms sweat against the leather of the basketball. He dribbled once and took a shot that clanked off the rim and the sounds grew louder.   
“Relax, you got this!” he heard someone, Figueroa maybe, call out to him as the ball was returned for his last shot.   
He took a deep breath, dribbling once, fixing his eyes on the net, putting everything out of his mind.   
His form was as perfect as it had ever been as the ball flew from his fingertips. Ten pairs of eyes followed it from the court, frozen in time as the fate of the game hinged on this one moment. The ball swooshed through the net and time suddenly unfroze for Tony. His breath was knocked out of him by the surge of his teammates crashing into him, crushing him in hugs, and cheering at the top of their lungs.   
When the championship trophy was presented to the team, Tony searched the crowd once more, looking for a pair of eyes that he knew he wouldn’t see.   
The same pair of eyes he looked for in vain as he stood in an itchy suit on stage in the cafetorium accepting an award at the end-of-year athletic banquet. 

_A dreamsicle on a summer night  
_ _In a folding lawn chair  
_ _I’m still packing up my room  
_ _Gotta get home soon  
_ _New sneakers on a high school court  
_ _And you swore you’d be there  
_ _My heart breaking through the springtime  
_ _Breaking in June_

* * *

Tel Aviv, 1996 

Her parents’ marriage had been over for years, if she was being honest with herself.   
However, she had always held on to some shred of hope that things would get better-- that they would fix whatever was wrong and get back together and they could all be a happy family again.   
But today it had all ended; their divorce was final.   
Ziva hated them both. How could this have happened? Why would they do this to her? To Tali?   
She thought about how her younger sister had cried every night for a week. How the girl would climb into bed with her and how Ziva would soothe her back to sleep, all while Ziva was, herself, unable to fall asleep.  
All she wanted was to leave this behind her. She didn’t want to have to make decisions like who she wanted to live with. She didn’t want two birthday celebrations or two of every holiday. She just wanted her family back together.   
Maybe she could run away and live with Ari. He had his own apartment in the city. He had a job. He always took care of her and was so nice to spend time around. Ari wouldn’t make her answer these hard questions.   
She could run away, find somewhere else to live, somewhere that was far enough away that no one would know about what she had been through. Because, when school went back into session, all of her friends would have questions. They would all want to know what had happened. The teachers would be sympathetic and want her to talk to a counselor. Everyone would want to know if she was okay and how she was handling everything.   
She didn’t want to answer those questions either. 

_Broken glass and broken vows  
_ _I’ll be 18 four years from now  
_ _With different friends in a different town  
_ _I’ll finally be free  
_ _Call you both some holiday  
_ _Tell you why I moved away  
_ _Say, “Everything’s gonna be okay  
_ _You can come see me”_

* * *

Tel Aviv, 1990 

“Where is Abba?” Ziva questioned as her mother handed her a glass of juice to drink with dinner.   
She missed the wave of pain that passed over her mother’s face as she searched for the best way to answer the question. “He is at work,” she said, convincingly enough for an eight-year-old, “He will be home soon. Now, go to the table.”  
“He is going to miss dinner,” Ziva said, placing the cup on the table and flopping into her dining chair.   
Rivka bit her lip before responding, “Yes, but he is very busy tonight, ahava. He will see you soon.”

 _A dreamsicle on a summer night  
_ _In a folding lawn chair  
_ _Daddy’s howling at the moon  
_ _Better get home soon_

* * *

Long Island, 1983 

“I just want Mom to come back,” Tony sobbed, holding his father tightly.  
Senior ran a hand up and down his son’s back, trying to hide the tears from his voice as he answered, “I know you do, son. I do, too.”  
The young boy’s tears dampened his father’s shirt and he sniffled, clinging to his father like he was all that he had. He was all that he had.   
“What are we gonna do, Dad?” he cried.  
Senior broke and tears fell from his eyes as he buried his face in his son’s hair, “I don’t know. I-- don’t know.”

 _Heat lightning in the evening sky  
_ _And my mama’s red hair  
_ _Hearts breaking through the springtime  
_ _Breaking in June_  
 _Breaking in June_  
 _Breaking in June_


	3. St. Peter's Autograph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Almost a year after Ziva's return she falls into a deep depression and Tony doesn't know why.

For the past week, Ziva had barely left their room. Tony had watched her, curled in the fetal position under the blankets in the dim light of the room.   
She was practically catatonic. Her eyes dull whenever he actually got to see them.   
“Babe, you’ve gotta eat something,” he called out to her, voice soft.    
She hugged the blankets tighter around her in non-verbal disagreement.   
He walked into the room with a bowl of stew in his hand. She turned her face away from him when he knelt beside their bed and turned on the lamp on the nightstand.  
“Ziva, you’ve been like this all week,” he said, “You’ve gotta be hungry.”  
She avoided looking him in the eyes.   
He sighed and looked at the food in the bowl he was holding. 

_ What do I do to make you smile?  
_ _ You’ve been hurting for a while  
_ _ What can I do to make you laugh?  
_ _ Get St. Peter’s autograph? _

The bowl of stew eventually cooled on the nightstand as Ziva fell into a fitful sleep. Tony felt her tossing and turning in the bed next to him. He debated shaking her awake _ ,  _ but he didn’t have to because he heard her jolt awake with a gasp of “Adam!”  
All the pieces began to click into place.   
It had been almost a year since Ziva had let him know that she was done running and would be returning to them soon.   
‘That must mean…’ Tony thought, ‘This would be about the time that Adam…’  
He watched her for a while, trying not to draw her attention. She closed her eyes tightly and he knew that she was trying to force herself to go to sleep. His arms reached out to her and pulled her to his chest. He felt her sigh against him, but she didn’t struggle against him. He rubbed his hand up and down her back, soothing her back to sleep.   
She eventually did fall asleep, but Tony stayed up through the night, watching her and holding her close.

_ What’s that distance in your eyes?  
_ _ Has your faith been compromised?  
_ _ What can I do to help you sleep?  
_ _ I’ll work hard and work for cheap _

Another day dawned with Ziva in the same state.   
As long as Tali was around, she put up a front and tried to make the little girl believe that nothing was wrong. However, as soon as their daughter left for school, Ziva curled up under a blanket on the couch and started blankly at the television.   
Tony sat at his desk, typing a report. He honestly couldn’t tell you what it said. He was running on autopilot, worried more about Ziva than anything else.   
He glanced over at her and closed his eyes sadly.   
How could he fix this? He had to fix it.   
He had always hated to see Ziva suffer. It had always been in his nature to do whatever he could to fix her troubles. Now was no different.   
But the problem was certainly different.   
They had talked about so many things, about so much of what she had faced in her journey to return to them. However, she had only ever barely touched upon the subject of Adam’s death. She had only ever told him the general story of what had happened, never really  _ talking  _ about it.   
He had hoped that she was talking about it with her therapist, but he doubted it.  
He knew Ziva well enough to know that she was very unlikely to have brought up such a painful topic. She had probably talked less about him there than she had at home.

_ Sometimes it’s nothing but the way you’re wired  
_ _ And that’s not your fault  
_ _ We’re all struggling with the world on fire  
_ _ And the fear we’re taught _

They put Tali to bed together that night and retired to the living room in silence. Tony turned on the television and Ziva curled up on the other end of the couch. He glanced over at her and gave a little sigh. They couldn’t keep going like this.   
He called her name and her head twitched a little in his direction, but she didn’t look at him.   
Tony shook his head and picked up the remote to turn off the television. She continued staring at the blank screen.   
“You can’t keep doing this, Ziva,” he spoke, “I know you’re hurting. I know… I know it’s about Adam.”  
She didn’t speak.   
He continued, “You two were… close.”  
The silence hung heavy in the room and he had no choice but to continue, “I know what this week is, Ziva. I know why you’re hurting.”  
She crossed her arms over her legs and hugged them close to her body.  
“I know that you’re going through a lot of pain,” he said.

_ Now you’ve lost another friend  
_ _ Who couldn’t stay to see the end  
_ _ He had somewhere else to be  
_ _ Cut him down and burn the tree _

Tony ran his fingers through his hair and sighed, frustrated by her lack of response. He couldn’t let this go, though. This was too important to let go.   
“I… don’t know what you’re going through,” he said, hoping that she was listening, “I’ve lost people close to me before, but I know that this was different.”   
He hoped she would respond, but she continued to sit in silence, staring away from him.  
Tony continued, “The things he did to help you return to us, how he brought Tali to me. I know you’ve known him since you were kids. I… know you guys were close.”  
Tony turned his body to face her and he stared at her, “Ziva, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you. Nothing you say will make me think any less of you. I want to help you, but you’ve got to talk to me. I want you to talk to me. I need you to talk to me, Ziva.”

_ There’s no shelter from the rain  
_ _ And I can’t comprehend your pain  
_ _ But I got arms and I got ears  
_ _ And I will always be right here _

Eventually, the silence became too much for Tony to bear. He was getting anxious and a bit angry. He stood up and walked to their room.   
Working with his hands almost always helped him to relieve some stress. He walked to their bed and began stripping the sheets from it. They had just changed the sheets not long ago and they weren’t due for another change, but he had to do something. He tore them away with more aggression than was probably required then threw them, far too hard, into a pile in the corner of the room.   
With a huff, he gathered the sheets into his arms and walked them down the hall to the laundry room, tossing them into the washing machine with detergent, shut the hatch, turned the dial, and punched the start button.   
He stopped by the linen closet on the way back to their room and collected clean, cheerful blue sheets.   
Tony carried the sheets back into their room and sat them on one of the bedside tables while he smoothed out the mattress pad. He unfolded the fitted sheet and tossed it out from one side of the bed. He busied his hands stretching the sheets over the corners of the mattress, pulling them taut, and smoothing them over the flat space. Then he set to work spreading the flat sheet and tucking it under the bottom of the mattress before covering it with the duvet. He folded down the top of the duvet and top sheet. Yanking the pillows off the ground, he punched them a couple of times to fluff them, then shoved them into new pillowcases, and tossed them onto the bed. 

“I have not spoken to you about Adam because it hurts too badly,” her voice spoke softly from the doorway of the room.   
He jumped a little in surprise, but turned to look at her.  
She still looked guarded, still looked hurt and scared. Like if he touched her, she would dissolve into ash and blow away in the wind. Like an injured rabbit, ready to dash away at even the slightest sign of danger.  
“I know that you and Adam were not…” she took a deep breath, “I know that it brings up a lot of pain for you. The last thing I want to do is to cause you any more pain, Tony.”

_ Sometimes it's nothing but the way you’re raised  
_ _ And that could have been worse  
_ _ And I see you suffering through the best of days  
_ _ Still you’re putting me first _

Tony took a careful step towards her and seemed slightly reassured when she didn’t flinch away from him. “Ziva,” he spoke, “nothing that you say could ever hurt me more than watching you suffering through this alone.”  
Her eyes were watery and she gulped back a sob.    
“I don’t care about what happened between you and Adam back then,” Tony said, shaking his head, “That’s all in the past. That doesn’t matter.”  
“Tony,” she said, tears starting to fall.  
He held up a hand to quiet her argument, “ZIva, I could never doubt the way you feel about me. Even if I did, all I would have to do is walk down the hall and look at  _ our daughter _ .”  
She bit her lower lip, ineffectively holding back a rather pathetic cry.   
Tony took another step toward Ziva and reached out for her hands, which she offered. His eyes met hers and he held them, “Don’t worry about me, Ziva.”  
“It is hard not to.”  
“I know. I know it’s hard, but… Ziva, please, you need to talk to me. Or talk to someone.  _ Please _ .”

_ What do I do to let you know  
_ _ That I’m not haunted by his ghost? _ _   
_ _ Let him dance around our room  
_ _ Let him smell of your perfume _

She nodded, sniffling.   
“I just need to know you’re okay, Ziva,” Tony said, tears beginning to fall down his cheeks as well.   
Ziva nodded.   
Tony dropped her hands and folded her into his arms, “I just need to see you smile again. Need to hear you laugh again.”  
Ziva clung to him tightly, holding on with everything she had and began crying in earnest.    
“You deserve to be happy, Ziva,” he said, burying his nose in her hair and pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. He could feel her tears soaking through the material of his shirt.  
“Let it out,” he whispered, rubbing a hand up and down her back, “let it all out.”  
As he held her in his arms, rocking her back and forth in their bedroom long after midnight, Tony glanced upward and said a silent, “Thank you,” to the heavens, hoping that somehow the message would make its way to Adam, “Thank you for getting her back to me.”

_ Share your best remember whens  
If he comes through here again  
Maybe he could make you laugh  
Bring St. Peter’s autograph _


	4. Letting You Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything leads to this moment.

“I can drive the car,” Ziva insisted, reaching out to take the keys.    
Shmeil gaped at his much younger friend and argued, “Darling, you just gave birth.”  
Ziva rolled her eyes, “More than twenty-four hours ago.”  
He began to attempt another argument, but was interrupted by Orli’s voice.   
“You should know better than to argue with a David by now,” she said, shaking her head.  
Shmeil laughed, “You are right. What a fool I have been.”  
A nurse interrupted the group, walking through to show them how to secure the car seat in the back of Ziva’s vehicle. Ziva took advantage of the distraction to snatch the keys from Shmeil’s hand.   
The trip from the hospital back to the farmhouse was the slowest and most cautious drive Ziva had ever made. She checked the rearview mirror at every stop, just to assure herself that the small bundle in the backseat was still there. Each time she did so, Shmeil met her eyes in the mirror and smiled, letting her know that everything was okay. 

_ The nurse helped us buckle the seat in the car _ _   
_ _ And they sent us on our way, I drove home so slow _

The first day after Shmeil and Orli left her alone was the first time that it really sank in for Ziva what was happening.    
She sat in her room, staring at Tali, tiny and pink, dozing in her bassinet.   
‘Holy shit,’ she thought, unable to think anything else.   
The baby was vocal-- she got that from her father, Ziva insisted. She had never spent much time around infants and while she had a hypothetical understanding of how much need they required, it wasn’t real until the first few days alone with Tali.   
The baby was so small and felt so fragile that Ziva was almost afraid to hold her, but when she did-- oh. When she did.   
Some days Tali would cry. She would cry and cry, wailing at the top of her tiny lungs, face going beet red. She would cry even though her diaper was clean and dry. She would cry even though she was not hungry. She would just cry. And Ziva would sit on her bed, facing the bassinet and the angry baby and tug at her hair, almost crying herself. She didn’t know what to do and she didn’t know who to ask. The only friends that she really had in Israel, the only ones close enough for her to discuss Tali, were Shmeil, Orli, and Adam-- all childless. They would not have any more understanding than she did.    
God. She was supposed to be better. This was  _ her  _ child. She was  _ her  _ mother. Mothers were supposed to know.  
In desperation, Ziva gently picked up the fitful baby and just held her close and, in a quiet voice, apologized to the child. Apologized for not knowing what was wrong, apologized for not knowing how to fix it, apologized for her father’s absence. Somewhere along the way, the cries silenced. Tali blinked up at her mother, cozying into her embrace.   
Eventually, the sound of her mother’s voice relaxed the little one into a deep sleep.    
Ziva sighed deeply, feeling the tension in her body dissipate. 

_ We had no instructions, the first days were hard _ _   
_ _ But there’s things about babies a woman just knows _

The baby's cries into the wee hours of the morning did not disrupt Ziva’s sleep schedule as much as some might expect. She didn’t recall getting a full night’s sleep in almost 10 months now and that seemed unlikely to change.    
The nights that Tali didn’t wake her, she would usually wake herself. Torn from fitful sleep by dreams of pain and loss. More times than not, she awoke with Tony’s name hanging from her lips.   
One such morning, long before dawn, she awoke in a pool of sweat. She ran her hands through her hair and down her face, taking a deep breath and sighing into her palms.   
‘I fucked up,’ she thought, staring into the darkness, ‘I fucked up so much.’  
Knowing that she would not easily return to sleep, she stood and quietly walked into the kitchen to get a drink of water. On the return to bed, she caught a glimpse of her daughter’s sleeping face. She looked so peaceful, so calm, so wonderfully innocent and unaware of all the difficulties of life.   
A tear ran down Ziva’s cheek as she reached into the bassinet and gently placed her hand over Tali’s chest, feeling the baby’s steady heartbeat. Choking back a sob, she whispered into the night air, “I am sorry, Tony. I am sorry, Tali.”

_ Three in the morning, I lay my hand over  
_ _ Your heart just to know you were safe in your sleep _

10 months later

“My dear, you cannot hover over her and expect her to make any progress,” Shmeil scolded gently.    
Ziva raised up and responded, “I just do not want her to get hurt, Shmeil.”  
He chuckled, “That is the only way she will learn.”  
She began to argue, “I--”  
“The daughter of my Ziva and her DiNotzo is tough enough to take a few falls on her bottom,” he interrupted with a smile.   
Ziva smiled up at him, butterflies fluttering in her stomach when he mentioned Tony.   
Shmeil held out his hands toward the little girl and called out, “Now, Tali, why don’t you come here and show your mother that you do not need such smothering.”  
Ziva rolled her eyes and knelt back down with her daughter.   
She held the baby’s chubby hands and helped her to pull herself up and lower back down. Ziva was smiling at her daughter’s comfort with reaching a standing position, though it had become a slight hazard when Tali would use the coffee table to pull herself up and use her newfound height to pull items from said table. Ever since Tali had entered this phase of development, Ziva had learned that all food and drinks should be placed as close to the center of the table as possible, lest it end up splattered across the farmhouse floor. One day, she had placed a mug of tea on a magazine when she went to check on dinner in the oven. Tali pulled herself up to see where her mother had gone and grabbed at the magazine, pulling it off the table. While the mug had missed the little girl and safely landed on the carpet, the hot liquid splattered across Tali’s toes drawing a scream out of the little girl and sending Ziva flying back into the room. While she had always been incredibly protective of her daughter, this event somehow made Ziva even moreso.   
Tali had turned to face Shmeil who was sitting on the couch and continued using Ziva’s arm to pull herself up. However, rather than quickly dropping back down, she was now lifting her little feet and pacing in place just a bit.    
“Ah, look at her,” Shmeil said with a smile, “She’s ready to go.”  
He held his hands out, gesturing toward Tali, and smiled.    
The little girl giggled and smiled back, reaching a hand toward the old man.   
Slowly and awkwardly, she began to make clumsy steps away from her mother and toward Shmiel. The baby’s arms, now both lifted free of her mother’s, held out to her side as she instinctively worked to keep her balance. She made several tottering steps, giggling as she did, before collapsing into Shmiel’s hands.    
“Look at this big girl!” he said, helping Tali remain on her feet as she smiled from ear to ear and laughed her little bubbly laugh, feeding off of the happiness of her friend.   
Ziva, meanwhile, had collapsed with her hands over her nose and mouth, smiling with tears in her eyes. 

_ When you started walking, I fight back the urge  
_ _ To stay right there beside you, keep you on your feet _

8 months later

Ziva had packed a go-bag for Tali the night before and left it at a safe drop location for Adam to find, which meant that their handoff tomorrow would only involve her handing the toddler to him and leaving.    
This was her last night with Tali for who knows how long, maybe forever.   
She couldn’t bear to let the little girl out of her sight, even for a moment. She would hold her tightly to her chest until Tali began to struggle to escape.   
Ziva wanted to remember everything about her-- the weight of her in her arms, the sound of her voice, the way she called out “Ima!”, the way she smelled, her smile, the sound of her footsteps as she ran through the room, her laugh. Ziva had to engrain everything about her daughter into her memory so that she would never forget what she was fighting to protect.   
After Tali had fallen asleep in her arms, she ran her hands over the child’s back and through her hair.   
“Your father… he will love you so much, Tali. He will protect you. There is no one on Earth that I trust more than your father. And you are the only person on Earth who I love more than your father. He will take care of you, Tali. He will love you and you will love him,” she sobbed.   
She thought about Tony and Tali, how they would be together, how he would take care of her. She imagined seeing him hold Tali, press soft kisses into the girl’s hair, imagined him singing lullabies to her in his soft, deep voice.   
Ziva began to pray to whoever would hear her, begging for Tali’s safe passage to Tony, begging for Tony to understand, begging for Tony’s forgiveness.   
She held Tali even closer to her chest and sobbed, “I don’t want to let you go, Tali. I don’t want to leave you.”

_ Being your daddy comes natural  
_ _ The roses just know how to grow  
_ _ It’s easy to see that you’ll get where you’re going  
_ _ The hard part is letting you go  
_ _ The hard part is letting you go _

1 month later

“Lion King!” Tali shouted, flopping onto the couch in the hotel room she was sharing with her father.    
Tony shook his head, “No, Tali. No movie. Bed.”   
The little girl made a frustrated noise and threw her head back, “No bed!”  
“Tali,” Tony spoke with a warning tone in his voice.    
“Abba, pease?” she begged, looking up at him with wide eyes in the exact shade of her mother’s.   
“Oh my god, was I like this?” he muttered under his breath.  
“Aaaaaabbaaaaaaa,” Tali begged again with a little pout.   
He closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t resist that look and she knew it.   
“Okay,” he said, holding up a finger, “One movie. Then bed.”  
Tali smiled and threw herself back into the couch, “Movie! Movie!”  
He shook his head as he began setting up the movie for the little girl to watch. As it started, she held her hands out and called, “Abba! Abba here!”   
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” he said, returning to the couch and sitting down, prompting the little girl to crawl over and lean against his side.  
She looked up at him again and said, “Popcorn?”  
Tony just laughed. 

As he expected, Tali barely made it to “Hakuna Matata” before she had fallen asleep against his chest. He let the movie continue running as he held her gently and studied her little face.   
Her hair was curly like her mother’s, but the color was 100% a product of  _ his  _ mother’s genes. Likewise, her eyes may have been the shape of a DiNozzo’s, but the color was all Ziva. He liked to think that she was the most beautiful child on the planet, but knew that his opinion might be a bit biased.   
She certainly felt better than anything he deserved.  
There was so much of her mother in her-- in her insistence on doing things alone, in her bashfulness, in her love of animals, and in her attraction toward books. In the looks that she could give that would have him bending over backwards to keep her happy. In the absolute trust and love in her eyes ever since they had met. 

_ It didn’t take long to see you got the best of me  
_ _ And your mama’s merciful heart in your eyes _

The loss of Ziva had destroyed Tony. He could feel himself collapsing inward like a neutron star from the very moment that the news story had broken about the explosion-- though, in truth, it had been threatening ever since the night he left her on the tarmac in Tel Aviv.   
Tali had given him something to live for, a reason to wake up every morning. She needed him and that need kept him going.    
She kept him from feeling as though he was all alone in the world. Objectively, he knew that he wasn’t alone, he had his father and his family at NCIS, but there was a difference… this sort of existential loneliness that had only ever been abated by Ziva’s presence… Tali calmed that within him.   
Until the day that he could hold Ziva in his arms again, Tali would be what kept him moving forward. He would live every day for her. He would give everything he had for her. 

_ And helping her raise you has taught me to see through  
_ _ The great fog of loneliness, the devil’s disguise _

3 years later

“Are you ready?” Tony asked, holding the little girl’s hand as they stood near the baggage carousel in the busy airport.   
He noticed that she did not immediately answer him and he looked down at her. She was chewing her bottom lip and shifting her weight from foot to foot. Something was wrong. He knelt down in front of her, getting on her level.    
“Alright, what’s up, Stitch?” he asked.  
She rolled her eyes, “ _ You’re  _ Stitch. I’m  _ Lilo _ .”  
“Right, right,” he said, taking both of her hands in his, “So, what’s up,  _ Lilo _ ?”  
She smiled a little, but then returned to her anxious expression, “Nothing.”  
Tony closed his eyes, shook his head, and chuckled to himself with a little grin, “You are so much like your mother.”  
“She’s really coming back, right?” Tali asked, voicing one of her concerns.   
Tony’s smile turned to a grimace. He understood why she was so worried. They had been waiting on Ziva’s return for three years, it seemed unbelievable that it was now imminent. “Kiddo, she sent me an email from the plane. I know she’s coming,” he looked up at one of the arrivals boards then back to his daughter and said, “In fact, she’s probably already here, just in a different part of the airport.”   
“Really?” Tali asked, looking like she was holding her breath.   
“You know it’s okay to be scared, right?” he told her.  
She shook her head, “I’m not scared, I’m…”  
He watched her search for words before offering, “Nervous?”  
Tali nodded, “What if she doesn’t remember what I look like?”  
Tony smiled, “We sent her that video, remember? She’ll know exactly what you look like.”  
“What if I don’t remember what she looks like?”  
Tony nodded, “Okay. Let’s try this. Close your eyes and imagine your ima.”  
Tali clenched her eyes shut tight then nodded.   
“Let’s see… what do you remember?”   
“She’s got dark hair… and it’s curly, like mine. And her eyes are brown like mine.”  
Tony smiled, “Yep. You’re doing pretty great so far.”   
Tali smiled, “She’s shorter than you are, Daddy.”  
“Mmhmm,” Tony said with a nod, “Now, imagine hearing her voice.”  
Tali frowned as she concentrated very hard.   
Tony stood and stepped behind her, crouching again with his hands on her shoulders. He spoke close to her ear, “Think about how her voice sounded when she said your name. Think really hard.”  
“Tali,” a voice called out and it took the little girl a moment to realize that it wasn’t in her imagination. Her eyes flew open and she saw the face of her mother, looking only slightly different than she had remembered.    
“Ima!” Tali yelled, throwing herself at Ziva with all the force in her small body.   
Tony stayed crouched low to the ground, watching his daughter be wrapped up in her mother’s tight embrace. He desperately wanted to hold Ziva himself, but he decided to let them have this moment together.

_ Being your daddy comes natural  
_ _ The roses just know how to grow  
_ _ It’s easy to see that you’ll get where you’re going  
_ _ But the hard part is letting you go  
_ _ The hard part is letting you go _

20 years later

“You’re sure you want to go through with this?” Tony joked.  
“Dad,” Tali said with a slight warning tone to her voice.  
He smiled a wide smile, “I’m just saying, it’s never too late to postpone it all.”  
“I would have thought that you’d love any excuse to get to dress up like James Bond,” Tali smirked, looking remarkably like her mother did at the same age.   
“Well,” he said, fiddling with his bowtie, “my opposition isn’t to the  _ suit _ .”  
She rolled her eyes, “You like Oliver.”  
Tony humphed and grimaced.    
“ _ Dad _ ,” Tali said with a warning tone to her voice.   
He ran a hand through his gray hair, “I recently became a little less fond of him.”  
“How recently?” Tali asked, raising an eyebrow.  
Tony shrugged, “Oh, sometime around the time that a ring came into the picture.”  
Tali sighed and shook her head, “Well, if you’re not going to walk me down the aisle, I guess I can do it myself.”  
His eyes sparked, “Don’t even think about it, kiddo.”  
“The music’s starting, Dad.”  
Tony took a deep breath and nodded, “You ready?”  
She took a similar breath, “As ready as I ever will be.”  
“That’s my girl,” he said with a smile as she looped her arm through his. 

_ And now you’ve decided to be someone’s wife  
_ _ And we’ll walk down the aisle and I’ll give you away _

Tony fought tears every step of the way as he escorted his only child down the aisle of the gallery where she was to be wed.   
Her grip was tight on her arm and he tried not to look too closely at her, afraid that he would see tears in her eyes and he would lose it.   
It seemed like they walked fifty miles before they reached the front where Oliver stood beside an officiant.   
Tony stared into the young man’s eyes with a look that could kill, or maim at least.    
“You better not mess this up,” he whispered.   
Oliver nodded, “I won’t.”  
“You know what happens if you do,” Tony said.   
“You’ll kick my ass.”   
Tony shook his head, “I won’t, but my wife will.”  
Oliver glanced from Tony before him to Ziva at the front row of the crowd. Tony could see the bob of the young man’s Adam’s apple as he gulped, knowing the implications of the comment.   
“She’s our little girl,” Tony said, “take care of her.”

_ I wish I could walk with him back through your life  
_ _ To see every last minute of every last day _

“Who gives this woman to be wed?” the officiant spoke.  
Tony cleared his throat slightly and answered, “Her mother and I.”  
He lifted Tali’s veil and looked at her face, getting lost in memories. The sound of her voice on the first day they met, the first time he heard her call him “Abba”, the day she came home from preschool with a note from her teacher telling him that she had been punished at school for punching a little boy’s face, the pride he felt when he learned that she did it because the boy had tried to kiss her cheek, the nights when she would scream herself awake and he would sing her to sleep.  
He remembered walking her to school on her first day and the way they clung to each other before he had to leave her for the first time.   
He remembered piggy-back rides to ice cream stands on sunny Saturday afternoons in Paris.   
He remembered seeing her wrapped tightly in her mother’s arms in the airport.   
He remembered her impatience on their return flight to the States.   
Remembered watching her excitedly run from room to room in their new home as she picked out her bedroom while Ziva and he watched on.   
Remembered seeing her in a little blue dress, walking down the aisle of his own wedding, excitedly casting flower petals on the ground in front of her.  
Remembered seeing her crossing the stage at graduations.  
He thought about her playing with her adopted cousins, learning to ride a bike, at her first soccer game, cooking with her mother.   
He looked at her standing in front of him, still his little girl after all these years.

_ To hear your first words and to feel your first heartbreak  
_ _ To sing you to sleep when you’re scared of the dark _

Tali searched her father’s eyes and saw him lost in a haze of nostalgia and smiled, letting a tear roll down her cheek.    
“Daddy,” she said softly, “It’s okay.”  
Tony bit his lip and nodded, blinking away tears of his own.    
She smiled a little, “I trust him, Dad.”  
Tony gave a sad smile before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his daughter’s cheek. “I love you, kiddo,” he said softly.  
“Love you, too, Dad.”

_ The best I can do is to let myself trust that you know  
_ _ Who’ll be strong enough to carry your heart _

Tony stepped back and took his place beside Ziva as they sat. She reached over and took his hand, smiling at him.    
“She’s all grown up, Tony,” Ziva whispered into his ear.  
He could hear the tears in her voice just as thick as they had been in his own.    
“She’ll always be my baby,” he responded.    
Ziva smiled sadly and nodded, “We can’t keep her to ourselves forever, my love.”  
Tony sighed.  
She continued, “We were always going to have to let her go one day.”

_ And being your daddy comes natural  
The roses just know how to grow  
It’s easy to see that you’ll get where you’re going  
The hard part is letting you go  
The hard part is letting you go _


	5. Be Afraid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Old habits are hard to break and when you've spent so much of your life on edge, how can you possibly settle into a life of calm and stability?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I don't want to assume that my writing is strong enough that it will immerse you in Ziva's anxiety here, but I feel like I should go ahead and mention that this chapter does deal with anxiety and derealization. If you're especially sensitive to those issues, proceed with caution. I did base some of it on my own experiences in that area, so I hope that there is some realism in the depiction.

Old habits are hard to break.  
Ziva had spent three years on the run and fighting for her life. Before that, she had gone through so much training that taught her to limit her trust, to always look over her shoulder, to never let her guard down.   
Despite the fact that she had settled into a quiet civilian life, there were times when she fell back into the past.   
Days when she would wake up in a panic, not knowing where she was-- not the bed, not the city, not the continent. Dinners out with her family when she would take strange detours and duck into shops along the way, not seeking anything out, but instinctively trying to throw imaginary followers off of her trail. Visits to the park when she would have to actively convince herself that it was safe to interact with her partner and daughter in public-- that she was no longer putting them in danger by associating with them.

Well before dawn, she awoke in a pool of cold sweat, adrenaline surging through her veins. She slipped out of bed and changed into running clothes and walked out the door without a sound.  
She ran eight miles before she even realized, completely, where she was and what was happening.   
She had run out into the dimly lit streets, leaving behind her cell phone and watch. Leaving no note or message to let Tony know where she had gone.   
Her muscles burned and she couldn’t stand still. She thrived in the freedom of running with no set goal; she ran like a deer across a safe meadow, like a thoroughbred returning to the track, like a dog who had been stuck inside for far too long. She didn’t know where she was going, but when she was running, she didn’t have to think about anything else.

_We’ve been testing you_ _  
_ _And you failed_ _  
_ _To see how long that you could sit with the truth, but you bailed_

It was mid-morning before she returned. Tali had already left for school, but she hoped that Tony was home because her keys had also been left behind in her mad dash.   
She knocked on the door of her own home. That felt like a metaphor that might be too on the nose, but here she was.   
When Tony answered the door, she could see his entire body was tense. His mouth drawn to a thin, white line and his shoulders square. After he looked her over and realized that she was safe, the tension visibly left his frame. He sighed deeply, but silently held the door open for her.  
In her peripheral vision, she could see him shaking his head as he walked to his desk and flopped into the chair. She didn’t say anything, just went to the shower. 

Under the hot water, she worked away the sore muscles from her run. She rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms over her head, enjoying the warmth of the spray on her back.   
Sometimes she didn’t feel like she was actually in her own body. Sometimes she felt like a third person observer, watching this character who looked like her as she panicked and fled.   
It was a surreal experience. Especially when the sensation ended and she was back in her body; when she would feel as though she didn’t know how she had gotten to where she was and as though a significant amount of time had passed without her knowing. She felt as though her brain was being abducted by aliens and eventually zapped back into her body. 

_I don’t think you even recognize the loss of control_ _  
_ _I don’t think you even see it in yourself_

When she got out of the shower and redressed in clean clothes, Tony was still working at his computer. He didn’t look up as she entered the room, but called over his shoulder, “There’s a waffle in the oven if you’re hungry.”  
“Thanks,” she mumbled back, confused by how he was treating all of this as though it was normal.   
She walked into the kitchen and found the waffle he had mentioned. While she was pouring syrup over it, she heard Tony’s footsteps and looked up to see he had entered the kitchen.   
He was leaned against the door, watching her, brows knitted and face unreadable.   
“Where were you?” he asked, voice frighteningly neutral.   
She answered, “I went for a run.”  
He nodded, looking no more satisfied with this answer, but keeping his poker face. “Long run?”  
“About 15 miles,” she shrugged.   
“That’s longer than a half-marathon, Ziva,” he said, shaking his head.   
“Hm.”  
He bit his bottom lip hard enough that she was surprised that he didn’t draw blood.   
She started to eat her waffle.   
“What the fuck were you doing?” he said with a strained voice.   
She looked up blankly, “I was running.”   
“Ziva,” he said, stress evident in his voice, “you didn’t take your phone. You didn’t take your keys or your wallet. What if something had happened to you?”   
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, “It does not matter because nothing happened to me.”  
He drew in a sharp breath, “How long are you going to keep doing this?”  
“Doing what?”   
His face was struggling to stay neutral, but she could sense the desperation, frustration, and anger growing, “You know what. The mornings where you wake up panicking. The way you get so antsy at the park. Taking all the weird routes when we go out. Sneaking off without letting anyone know where you are.”  
She dropped her fork to the plate, “I am an adult, you know? I do not have to explain what I am doing at all times.”   
“That’s right, you’re an adult,” he countered, “An adult who has people who rely on her. People who _need_ her.”  
Her lips drew tight and, if looks could kill, Tony would have been a smoldering crater, “You think I do not know that? You think that I do not care about that?!”  
Tony took a deep breath, trying to not further escalate things, “I think that you aren’t taking care of yourself like you should.”   
“What are you talking about?” she snapped.   
“I mean all of this. All the running and sneaking and panicking. That’s not good, Ziva. That’s not _healthy_ ,” he said, voice desperate and hands gesturing wildly.   
Ziva continued staring him down, “I am working through it.”  
“Are you, though?” he asked, “Because from here it looks like you’re just driving yourself to your breaking point.”   
She didn’t know what to say, but her glare did not diminish.   
“The past three years have been tough on all of us, Ziva. You, me, Tali…” Tony began, “But the difference for Tali and me is that we’re talking about it. We’re processing it in a healthy and supportive way.”   
He took a step toward her, “Ziva, you’re… you’re being self-destructive and I can’t keep letting you do this. You’ve gotta get help.”  
Tony took one of her hands in his and she stared at him as though he had grown wings.   
“Please, Ziva,” he begged, “For me? For us? For Tali? Please.”

_See, every one of us is counting dice that we didn’t roll_ _  
_ _And the loser is the last to ask for help_

She remained silent and he began gently tugging on her hand, leading her out of the kitchen. When they arrived at his desk, he gestured for her to sit down.   
She did and he stood slightly behind her and began to speak, “See, this is a website that helps you to find a therapist or counselor that fits your needs. You can select the problems that you’re having, the types of therapy that you’re interested in… and it will match you with therapists that it thinks will best serve you.”  
Ziva was silent as she took in the information on the screen.   
“I, um, I don’t have to stand here and watch you make your decisions,” he said, “I understand that this is deeply personal and you deserve some privacy.’  
He knelt beside her, took her hand again, and looked her in the eyes, “I just want to know that you’re getting some help, Ziva. I just need to know you’re going to be okay.”  
She blinked away tears and nodded slightly.  
He squeezed her hand and then stood back up, “I’m going to go work on lunch. If you need me, let me know.”  
As he walked away, Ziva turned back to the website and began looking at it seriously. Along one side was a list of issues that you hoped to address. One by one, Ziva began to tick them off--  
Anxiety.   
Depression.   
Grief.   
Life Transitions.   
Self Esteem.   
Sleep or Insomnia.   
Stress.   
Trauma and PTSD.   
A few more options were presented and she clicked through them, then waited for the website to narrow down her suggestions.   
Four therapists were listed. She read little blurbs about each one, feeling indifferent until reading the final one and feeling some strange twinge of connection.   
She clicked through to the therapist’s website and selected the option to schedule an appointment. As she filled out her information, her hands were shaking so badly that she had to correct herself many times.   
Somehow, despite the wildness of her life, she honestly believed that this was the scariest thing that she had ever done. 

_Be afraid, be very afraid_ _  
_ _But do it anyway_ _  
_ _Do it anyway_

Therapy, it turned out, was not what Ziva had expected it to be. In fact, after her first appointment, the only thing that she could think was “television lied to me.”  
There was no laying back on a leather couch while some egghead shrink never looked up from his notes and repeated things like, ‘Interesting,’ ‘Very good,’ and ‘How does that make you feel?’   
Though, it was now occurring to her that her understanding of counselling may have been colored by Tony and Tali’s constant rewatching of _Animaniacs_ .   
Her therapy was just her and her therapist in a comfortable little room with natural light and comfortable chairs. Photographs and art lined the walls and her therapist simply spoke to her, listening to her every word and helping her make her own epiphanies. 

She had not been the easiest patient at first.   
Between making the appointment and actually visiting the therapist, Ziva’s fear had festered. And the way that a beaten and cornered dog might snap out of fear and desperation, Ziva was ready to snap at her therapist.   
Luckily for her, it seemed that she was not the first wounded fighting dog he had taken in and cared for. He hardly even flinched when she snapped and shouted. He seemed unfazed by her abrupt movements and pacing.   
He had seen patients who were veterans of terrible wars. Patients who were survivors of abuse. Patients who had been too close to terrorist attacks. Patients who were refugees.   
No, Ziva was not his only wounded dog.   
And, just as a beaten and frightened dog may eventually learn to appreciate those who are helping, Ziva slowly began to let down her guard. 

_The stage belongs to you, and you feel like a star  
_ _And you can bark and snap like a dog at the man who just tuned your guitar_

“Why are you here, Ziva?” he asked her in one session, “What are you working towards?”  
She sat in silence, hunched over with her forearms resting on her legs. It took her a moment to form the answer the way she wanted to say it, “I just… want to be good enough to deserve my daughter’s love.”  
“Hmm,” he said, nodding and watching her, “You don’t feel that way now?”   
She shook her head, “I don’t deserve anyone’s love.”

Several months later, the subject of Tali was brought up again.  
“You’re her hero, you know?” he said.   
Ziva looked at him, curiously, “No, I… I cannot be her… No.”   
He chuckled a little, “Ziva, she sees you as… Wonder Woman. In her eyes, you can do no wrong.”  
Ziva shook her head, feeling the sting of tears in her eyes. She looked to the floor, avoiding her therapist’s eyes, “She only feels that way because she doesn’t know all the horrible things I have done.”   
“Does Tony?”   
“What?”   
“Does Tony know about all the things you have done?”   
Ziva shrugged, “Most of them. I have been being more… open with him lately.”   
“And he still loves you? Still looks at you like you hung the stars and moon?”   
Ziva was silent.   
“You don’t have to answer that,” he said, “because I see him in the waiting room before and after your every appointment.”   
Ziva’s silence continued.   
“If Tony can know all the things that you’ve done and all the things that you’ve been through, but still love you, why do you think that Tali wouldn’t do the same?”   
  


_And I don’t think you even recognize the kid in the wings_ _  
_ _And I don’t think you even see her in yourself  
_ _She looks to you for what to do with all her delicate dreams_ _  
_ _But you’re too terrified to be of any help_

“I think you need to find something to do,” her therapist suggested at a session about a year into her visits with him, “Something that makes you feel accomplished. What do you think?”  
Ziva thought about what he had said, “I have not done any real work since I left NCIS. I don’t think I’m really qualified to do anything these days.”   
“That’s not true,” he countered.   
She didn’t speak.   
“How do you feel about working again?” he asked.   
“Nervous… I… still do not know if I have my anxiety completely under control.”   
“And what about working makes you think about that?”   
“What if I am at work and I begin to have an anxiety attack? Would I be able to work through it on my own? How could I handle it in public?” she rambled.   
He nodded, “Well, Tony works from home, right?”   
She nodded.   
“You could always call him,” he suggested, “or in an emergency, you can call my office.”  
Ziva appeared to be thinking over what he said.   
“You don’t have to be… not worried or not scared about doing this, Ziva,” he said, “It’s normal to be worried or scared about starting a new phase of life. The problem is letting the worry and fear stop you from moving forward and growing.”

_Be afraid, be very afraid  
_ _Do it anyway  
_ _Do it anyway  
_ _Be afraid, be very afraid  
_ _Do it anyway  
_ _Do it anyway_

A few more sessions passed without much further discussion of Ziva finding work until, at the end of a session, he handed her a piece of paper.   
“What’s this?” she asked as she looked it over.   
“It’s a job application,” he explained, “to work with the refugee assistance center in town.”   
She looked up at him, “You think that I should do this?”   
He nodded, “I think that you are almost uniquely qualified to help people going through the intense upheaval that they’re dealing with.”  
Ziva stared at the application and thought about what he was saying.  
“You’ve been coming here for over a year to learn how you can get over all the trauma of your past,” he began, “now I think you can use your experiences to help other people going through similar situations.”  
She nodded.

_And we don’t take requests_ _  
_ _We won’t shut up and sing_ _  
_ _Tell the truth enough  
_ _You’ll find it rhymes with everything_

Less than 24 hours later, Tony was fussing with the computer as he tried to connect the scanner so that she could send in her completed application.  
She couldn’t remember the last morning that she woke up in a cold sweat, disoriented and panicking. The last time she had ran out of the house and drove her body to its breaking point. The last time she felt like a third-person observer in her own life.   
The secrets that she kept from her family had gone from being the look in a dying man’s eyes and the bones broken by a hit man, to birthday parties and Christmas gifts.   
Each day, the load on her shoulders felt lighter than ever.   
She played in the park with Tali and walked to the store and to restaurants, only looking over her shoulder to tease Tony for lagging behind.   
Old habits are hard to break, but they break like anything else.   
A whirring sound and Tony’s triumphant shout broke her from her thoughts and she realized that her partner was looking at her with a wide grin.   
“Got it fixed,” he said proudly, “and I didn’t even have to call McGee for help.”   
She rolled her eyes at him, “Ah, yes, thank you, my one-man tech support squad.”  
He nodded with a look of pride and humor.   
“Ready to get that scanned and sent in?” he asked.   
She nodded, “Absolutely.”  
As the scanner did its work, Tony leaned over and pressed a kiss to Ziva’s temple, “I’m so proud of you, Ziva.”  
She smiled.

_We’ve been testing you  
_ _And you failed  
_ _To see how long that you could hold it in before you screamed, but you only exhaled_

A week later, Ziva went for a run, but she wasn’t running alone. This time, Tali jogged alongside her, taking two strides for every one of her mother’s.   
They didn’t make it as far as Ziva usually ran. They certainly didn’t make it 15 miles.   
But they did make it around the block twice and then to Tali’s favorite neighborhood park.   
Ziva decided that pushing her daughter on the swings and helping her to cross the monkey bars counted as plenty of exercise for this morning.   
Somehow, though it logically was not accomplishing nearly as much, Ziva felt so much more reward from this little exercise than she had felt from any other.   
Halfway home, Tali complained that her feet were tired, so Ziva hoisted the girl onto her back and finished the route with her daughter riding piggyback.   
When they reached the door, Ziva knelt to let Tali slide down and began reaching in her pocket for the keys, but was stopped by Tali’s arms wrapping tightly around her.   
Ziva tilted her head, curiously, “What’s up, ahuva?”  
“Nothing,” Tali said, shrugging as she drew her arms back, “I just love you, Ima.”   
Ziva’s face broke into a wide grin and she knelt down on their doorstep and wrapped Tali in a bone-crushing hug, “I love you, too, Tali. So, so, _so_ much.”

_I don’t think you even recognize the sound of your voice  
_ _When it’s blasting through the speakers in the sky_

When they walked inside, they could immediately smell the waffles Tony was busy making in the kitchen.  
“Daddy, we’re hoOome!” Tali called in her best impression of her father’s best Ricky Ricardo impression.   
Tony stuck his head out of the kitchen with a grin, “Just in time for brunch, too.”  
Tali, feet apparently no longer hurting, scampered to the kitchen to either help her father or snatch some breakfast while he wasn’t looking-- money was on the latter.  
As Ziva untied her shoes, she felt her phone buzzing in her pocket. She pulled it out and checked the number. It looked familiar, but she couldn’t place it. She answered it. 

Somewhere between an “Uh-huh” and a “Thank you,” Tony entered the room and watched Ziva with bated breath.   
When she hung up, he couldn’t help but ask, “Was that the, uhh…?”   
Ziva nodded, lips pursed tightly, “The refugee assistance center, yes.”  
Tony bit his lip, obviously nervous, “What did they say?”  
She turned to look at him, face quickly breaking into a wide grin.  
“You got the job?!” he shouted before she had a chance to speak.   
“I got the job,” she confirmed.   
He threw himself into her, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. Neither of them seeming to care about the waffle batter that had been on Tony’s shirt and had now smeared onto both of them.   
“I’m so proud of you, Ziva,” he said quietly, “So fucking proud of you.”

_And if your words add up to nothing, then you’re making a choice  
_ _To sing a cover when we need a battle cry_

The next Monday, Tony had pulled the car up in front of a nondescript office building not far from their home.   
“Ready for your first day of work, Sweetcheeks?” he asked.   
She turned to him with a wide smile.  
“Got your lunch? Your phone? All the stuff you’ll need for the day?” he questioned, looking around the car for anything she might have forgotten.   
She nodded, “I think I have everything.”  
“How do you feel?” he asked.  
She took in a deep breath, “Honestly? A little scared.”   
He reached over to take her hand, “You’re gonna do great, babe. I know it.”  
Her smile grew soft, “Thank you, Tony.”  
“I know you,” he said, “You can do anything that you set your mind to. No one is better suited for this job than you.”  
She looked shyly at him.   
He squeezed her hand, “You’re gonna do great things, Ziva David.”  
She leaned across the console and pressed a soft kiss to his lips as she opened the door. Stepping out into the sun, she stretched her back before turning back to Tony, “You’ll be here to pick me up after work, right?”  
He nodded, “And I’ll have dinner on the table, a martini in your hand, and, if you’re lucky, you might even get a foot rub.” He winked at her with a smirk.  
“I love you, Tony.”  
“Love you, too, Ziva,” he replied, “Now, go get ‘em, tiger.”

_Be afraid, be very afraid_   
_Do it anyway_   
_Do it anyway_


	6. Running with Our Eyes Closed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have no idea where they're going, but they have to make it home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, everyone's out here doing T. Swift songfics and I'm the dorky dad who's like, "But have y'all heard the new Jason Isbell album?"

_ Took forever to get you to trust me _ _   
_ _ Like I wasn’t feeding a bird from my hand _

Trust didn’t come easy for Ziva and, the way Tony figured, her wariness was well-earned. He felt like every time he let her out of his sight, she was getting herself in some sort of terrible situation. He would like to say that he had lost track of how many times that he or another member of the team or a combination of the two had worked to rescue Ziva, or prove her innocence, or help her clean up a mess that Mossad had left for her, but the truth was that he remembered each and every one of them.    
He remembered working his ass off-- sacrificing more than he had ever imagined that he would-- to earn her trust time after time, only for something to come along and throw them back to square one.    
No, square one was better than some of the places that they had been. Was square negative three-thousand a thing? Because that certainly sounded more like where they were in the Spring of 2009.    
It probably wasn’t fair to say that he was the only one who had spent time trying to build back trust. She had fought tooth and nail to earn the trust of their team and her friends. Sometimes fighting harder than she really had to, but he couldn’t fault her for carrying a chip on her shoulder since he knew that he carried one of his own. 

_ And if this isn’t love, then it must be _ _   
_ _ Another answer I don’t understand _ _   
_ _ To a prayer that was “please” and not “thank you” _ _   
_ _ To a question I wrote in the sand _ _   
_ _ To a wish that I made on a satellite _ _   
_ _ From a witness in tears on the stand _

Honestly, he felt that their recovery from her long absence went much more smoothly than many of their past reunions.    
That’s not to say that there hadn’t been anger, that there hadn’t been raised voices and tears, that neither of them had felt the need to escape from time to time.    
But they always came back.    
The smoothness came from a new attitude that the both brought with them. There were no more false pretenses, no more need to hold back emotions. Even coming back from something so painful, there had been a baseline of trust that they had established through the years and reaffirmed in locations around the world.   
Tired confessions of love said as though they had been said a million times over (and perhaps they had, but never with voices) anchored them to one another from shortly after Ziva’s arrival in France.    
Love, for one another and for their daughter, was a stronger foundation than any they had built upon before.

_ Running with our eyes closed _ _   
_ _ Running with our eyes closed  _

There wasn’t a lot of relevant advice for them out there. McGee and Delilah, Jimmy and Breena, Ducky, and even Gibbs had made themselves available to listen and talk things through, but there was only so far that they could relate.   
They always came back. They were always waiting for the other to return.   
They talked, they listened; they apologized, they forgave.    
Like explorers working their way through a dark cavern, they moved slowly, carefully, and deliberately, and felt their way along toward the glimmer of light at the other end.    
They accepted that some stories needed to be written in pencil instead of ink and that using the eraser wasn’t a sign of failure or weakness, but of learning and growth. 

_ Well, you are who you are when you’re angry _ _   
_ _ When you’re scared or you’re sad or you’re bored _ _   
_ _ When a stranger has slipped you a room key _ _   
_ _ To a hotel room you couldn’t afford _

For weeks after Ziva’s return, Tony had bit back his anger over everything. He was afraid that she was made of glass and if he even looked at her too harshly, she would shatter into a million pieces.    
When he finally broke, it was over something stupid. She had gone out to the market and forgot the broth he had needed to cook supper. He didn’t even realize that he had started shouting until he heard Tali’s door slam shut and noticed Ziva standing in the kitchen, looking every bit like a deer frozen in the headlights of an oncoming semi.   
He didn’t know what to do. Suddenly the focus of his anger changed from her to himself. He all but ran from the apartment, finally stopping to sit down on a park bench blocks and blocks away from home. He rubbed his face and cried into the palms of his hands until the streetlights came to life and he knew that he had to go home and explain his actions. 

She nearly leapt out of her skin when he opened the door.    
“Tali already in bed?” he said, words breaking the thin layer of ice that filled the room.   
Ziva’s eyes cast a nervous look at him, still giving him the impression that she would flee at any moment, “Yes. I hope that is alright.”   
“Is she upset with me?”   
“She was, but,” Ziva began, “she and I spoke. I let her know that Daddy was having a bad day and that you didn’t mean to frighten her.”   
“I didn’t mean to frighten either of you,” he confessed.    
“Tony, I am sor-”  
He held up his hands to deflect, “No, this one is on me. I… it wasn’t about the soup, Ziva. Not really.”   
She turned to face him as he sat tentatively on the other end of the couch.   
“I’ve… not been completely up front with you about my feelings,” he confessed.   
“What do you mean?”   
“I mean, I guess, I’m… so afraid that I’ll ruin this, that I’ll break this...that I’ll break us, that I’ve not really been processing the… anger I’ve felt over this whole thing.”   
“You have every right to feel angry, Tony.”   
“I know. I know you’ve said that and I know Dr. Petersen’s said that, but… it’s… just hard… to break that habit.”   
She moved closer to him, but didn’t speak.    
“And I’ve bottled it all up for so long, but then it just… the bottle cracked just a little and it exploded everywhere and made such a mess.”   
Her hand found his resting atop his knee, “It is not fair to you that you should have to keep all of that anger inside yourself, but Tony… it is not fair to  _ us  _ either.”   
He looked at her, she knew that they were both not motivated by the pain it might cause themselves, but the pain it would cause others. They both had the personality of a person who would fall on a grenade if it would keep the other from being hurt and, should someone else have been hurt by something out of their control, would find a way to blame themselves. That much had become crystal clear on a dark evening in the autopsy lab back in the summer of 2008.    
“We are… working through these things together now, yes?” she said, carefully choosing each word, “which means that we must share our feelings-- all of them. Fear, sadness, anger.”   
He looked at their intertwined fingers. She was in this. He was in this. He had to believe that she meant it and that she wouldn’t run away when things got hard.    
He should believe it. Hours ago, he had shouted at her over a stupid carton of broth and had stormed from the apartment with no explanation of where he was going, but when he returned, not only was she still here, she was waiting for him.    
His hand clenched hers tighter and he nodded.

_ And we can never go back and be strangers _ _   
_ _ All our secrets are mixed and distilled _ _   
_ _ But you’ve taught me to temper my anger _ _   
_ _ And you’ve learned it’s alright to be still _

It was only right that their future would be together. For the past 15 years, they had grown like intertwined vines to the point where there was no separating them.    
Ziva’s past was Tony’s past and Tony’s past was Ziva’s past.    
Her story was his story and his story was her story.    
Maybe that was why Tony never had accepted any of Ziva’s “deaths,” because she was as much a part of him as his own arm and he would have known if she was really gone.    
They spoke in a language of shared experiences that outsiders lacked the ability to understand-- which had made their therapist’s work much more difficult, but to his credit, he soldiered through. 

Just like everything else, Ziva and Tony worked through this together, drawing strength from and nurturing one another.    
And it took a lot of strength and nurturing.    
It was like retraining stubborn dogs.    
Teaching Tony to not hold in his feelings and to not force things to work out of frustration or fear of the fallout of something not working. Showing them both that it was important to talk about issues as they happened rather than bottling them up for an eventual meltdown.    
Teaching Ziva that she wasn’t the root of the problems and that she made no one’s life easier by extracting herself from it. Helping her to take steps to finding a therapist she could see on her own to work on her feelings of inadequacy and self-deprecation. 

_ Running with our eyes closed _ _   
_ _ We’re running with our eyes closed _ _   
_ _ Running with our eyes closed _ _   
_ _ We’re running with our eyes closed _

It had been a long time since either of them had been in a serious relationship and, between the two of them, there had only been one instance of a relationship being serious enough that they had moved in together.    
At first, she had been hesitant to stay.    
“I can find my own place,” she told him one night, “I don’t want to be in your way.”   
He shook his head, “You’re never in the way, Ziva. You’re part of our life.”   
She spent six months living in a room that had once been a guest bedroom.    
Tony didn’t want to tell her, but there was some part of him that feared that, if she lived somewhere else, it would make it far too easy for her to run away again.    
It worked out for the best. The first month or so after she had returned, Tali’s sleep had been fitful and she had often woken in the middle of the night crying out for her Ima.    
Her cries would usually send Tony spiralling back to a time when those same cries could not be adequately answered and, before it was all said and done, he would have to creep down the hall and look in the bedroom door, just to assure himself that she was really there. 

A visit from Shmiel at the six month mark had changed their sleeping arrangements.    
Ziva had been so eager to see her old friend that she insisted he not stay in a hotel, but take her bed instead. That night, after he had retired to her room, Tony offered her his own room and she insisted that he not sleep on the couch.    
Once Shmiel left, her belongings began to slowly migrate to the master bedroom and the room that had been hers became a guest room once more.    
“Are we moving too fast?” she asked him one night as they leaned against one another, watching a movie.    
“Sweetcheeks, we’ve known each other for almost 16 years.  _ Glaciers  _ move faster than we do.”   
“I’m serious, Tony.”    
“Ziva, we’ve been living together for eight months and have yet to sleep together. Do you know how many times in my adult life I have gone eight months into a relationship without sex?”   
She looked up at him, raising an eyebrow.   
He held up one finger, “Once. This time. That’s it. I have never gone slower in a relationship.”   
“We live together,” she protested.   
“We have a six year old,” he countered.    
The conversation lulled.

_ Sleeping alone when you won’t forgive me _ _   
_ _ Swallowing my pride till I nearly choke _ _   
_ _ Screaming at the phone when you don’t believe me _ _   
_ _ And laughing at the joke _

A year into their relationship and it looked totally normal.   
Squabbles and arguments had turned from massive explosive meltdowns to typical disagreements. Things as commonplace as petty arguments that earned Tony a night of sleeping on the couch like a henpecked husband felt like little victories in their struggle toward stability.    
All of that aside, their therapist told them that the biggest improvement he saw was their improved communication. They were finally breaking away from Eli’s policies and Gibbs’s rules-- they were asking forgiveness, offering apologies, turning to one another for help when things got overwhelming. They were admitting their weaknesses and relying on one another in ways that they had never done before.    
Their partnership grew stronger with each passing day. Anger and sadness and fear no longer felt like weaknesses-- no longer felt like deep threats to their relationship. 

_ We’re running with our eyes closed  
_ _ Running with our eyes closed  
_ _ Running with our eyes closed _

_   
_ Eighteen months after Ziva left Washington for Paris, the three of them made a return journey.    
Neither Tony nor Ziva could have ever anticipated how much like home it would feel, sitting too close together on a swing in Gibbs’s backyard, surrounded by friendly and familiar faces, hearing the shrieks and shouts of Tali playing with her “cousins” in the wooden play-fort Gibbs had built for them.   
“We’re not really sure yet,” Tony had answered McGee’s question of if they would return stateside, but when he looked at Ziva, eyes reflecting the lights of the flickering citronella candles and firepit, he knew the real answer. 

That night, after putting Tali to sleep, Tony had told Ziva that he needed to go run an errand and slipped out of their hotel room. He drove his rental car to his destination based almost entirely on muscle memory.   
He found that 5-ish years had not changed Gibbs’s unlocked door policy and made his way to the basement, where he found Gibbs working on… well…   
“Building another play-fort, Boss?”   
Gibbs grunted an affirmative before responding, “Not your boss anymore, DiNozzo.”   
“Ah, yeah,” Tony said, making his way down the stairs, “old habits die hard.”  
He walked around, inspecting Gibbs’s construction. “Is this for Tori?” he asked, crouching down to look closer.   
“No,” Gibbs said.   
Tony raised back up and continued circling the creation, “Well, if it’s for Johnny and Morgan, you’ll have to class it up. This doesn’t look like the palace of an Elf Prince and Princess.”   
“‘S’not for them either.”   
He finally made it around to the side Gibbs was working on, but rather than ask a question, he just looked at his former boss with a puzzled expression.   
“I’m making it for Tali,” Gibbs explained.    
Tony looked confused and shook his head a little, “I don’t think we’ll be able to get this thing back to France, Boss. Not to mention that we don’t really have a yard at the apartment.”   
Gibbs leaned over, working on some detail that Tony would have never noticed, “It’s not going to France.”   
Tony huffed a little laugh, “We’ve not even decided if we’re moving--”   
Gibbs stood and faced Tony with a knowing look, “I saw her.”   
“Who?”   
“Ziver.”   
“What?”   
“She looked happy, DiNozzo. Happier’n I’ve seen her in a while.”   
A little smile formed on Tony’s face, “Yeah, she was happy wasn’t she?”   
He rubbed a hand over his face, “We’ve not talked about it yet, but… I think that’s what we all want. Tali deserves to be around the rest of her family.”   
Gibbs nodded and returned to his work.   
Tony moved to play idly with some of the tools on Gibbs’s workbench, “That’s actually what I came to talk to you about, Gibbs… Family.”   
The older man’s silence prompted Tony to continue talking.    
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately and how...different everything is than it was the last time I was down here. I mean-- last time I was in here, they’d just told us that Ziva--”   
“You goin’ somewhere with this, DiNozzo?” Gibbs asked, not looking up from his work.   
“Ah, yeah, actually. I-- uh-- well… maybe this is weird, but you’re all she’s got and I know this is usually a father thing and her father is, well… I mean, but she thinks of you like a father, maybe more than her actual father and…”   
Gibbs stood up and faced Tony. The smirk on his face told Tony that he already knew what the younger man was trying to do, but that he wasn’t tossing him a life preserver any time soon.    
“I’m asking your blessing,” Tony finally burst out, “to, uh, you know, marry Ziva.”   
Gibbs raised his eyebrow and his smirk grew more bold and there was even a little chuckle.   
Tony fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a small box. He opened it and held it where Gibbs could see the contents. It was a beautiful and delicate antique engagement ring.    
“It was my mom’s,” Tony explained, “Senior gave it to me years ago and I...thought I had lost the chance to ask. A couple of times, actually.”   
Gibbs studied the ring and nodded, still silent.   
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Gibbs. I’ve proposed before, I’ve had a wedding before, but you know how that turned out,” Tony rambled, “And I’ve never had… anything like what I have with Ziva. She and Tali are the most important people I’ve ever had in my life and I just want to make it all official.”   
Tony was silenced by Gibbs clapping him on the shoulder before pulling him into a rough, fatherly hug. This wasn’t a situation he often found himself in and Tony ended up awkwardly raising his arms to return the gesture. When Gibbs stepped back, he kept one arm on Tony’s shoulder and held out his other hand to shake Tony’s.    
“You got my blessing, Tony,” Gibbs said, “You don’t need it, but you got it.:”   
Tony could have sworn that there were tears in Gibbs’s eyes when he let go.

The next Spring found them all back in Gibbs’s backyard.    
Tony in a seasonal linen suit with McGee at his side as best man and Palmer as a groomsman. Across from them stood Abby in a bridesmaid dress and Tali all dressed up to serve as her mother’s maid of honor. Their other friends and family were seated on lawn chairs spread across the green grass.   
When Tony tells the story, he claims that he doesn’t remember anything before he saw Ziva, escorted by Gibbs, begin making her way across the lawn to take her place alongside him. The voice of Ducky, officiating their wedding, was a faint buzzing in his ears and he was lucky that they had practiced the whole thing the night before because his brain had stopped functioning by this point.    
He remembers the vow, the rings, the kiss, and the ketubah, but most of all he remembers the moment when Ducky pronounced them man and wife and he realized that, for two people who had no idea where they were going, they managed to find their way home. 

_ Running with our eyes closed _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last song from this album that I've got a story for, so I'm effectively saying that the one-shot collection is over here. However, there are a lot more Jason Isbell songs that I think work with Tiva and lend themselves well to stories.   
> If that's something you're interested in, drop me a line and let me know if I should add them on here or if I should, like, make a different fic for each album or what.   
> Or, like, maybe I should just stop now XD


End file.
